


Retrospect

by berebitsuki (Krasnotal)



Category: Notre-Dame de Paris | The Hunchback of Notre-Dame - Victor Hugo
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Gen, Post-Canon, Songfic, This may be gen but I'm a shipper and it HURTS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 21:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15228057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krasnotal/pseuds/berebitsuki
Summary: Some extra words on how Pierre lost his teacher and who wrote the word 'ANAГKH' on the wall.





	Retrospect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [sharktailedmermaid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharktailedmermaid/gifts).



> Book canon but also songfic on 'Age of the Cathedrals', the first song from the musical, sung by Pierre Gringoire. English is not my mother language, feel free to correct me if anything is wrong.

**\- a tale that takes its place in Paris fair, this year of grace -**

It all starts with a theatrical performance. Or rather – maybe it starts with a moneyless night, or with a pillary, or with gypsies coming to the city. But for Pierre it will forever be the staging of his mystery-play that got derailed by a hosier and a beautiful gypsy girl.

A crazy sleepless night – Dom Claude under his hood, Quasimodo, ignorant of anyone who is not Dom Claude, the police captain in his shining armour; the gibbet and the beautiful girl who took him from it; ‘Phoebe means ‘sun’’. The gypsy girl is in love with the captain. Claude Frollo is obsessed with the gypsy, though Pierre doesn’t know it yet. Quasimodo will be obsessed with them both. Pierre is just trying to survive.

Pierre tells Esmeralda of his teacher. Teacher asks him about the gypsy. The gypsy goes to trial for a wound in her beloved captain’s back. The gypsy needs to be saved.

_\- turning backwards -_

Pierre looks at his teacher – the gaunt priest, with a rabid flame in his eyes – and suddenly he’s looking through the years that passed. Claude Frollo, young, and sullen, and caring; Dom Claude, balding, and lost, and lonely. Pierre himself, adult, and egoistic, and verbose; Pierre, youthful, and lost, and cared for by Claude. His teacher ‘took interest’ in lost children – after Jehan he couldn’t leave even Quasimodo. Dom Claude, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, is lost himself. But it’s none of Pierre’s business, after all.

At that time Pierre doesn’t know yet that Dom Claude will perish following the unsaved gypsy girl, or that the most lost of his children will perish with him. Pierre doesn’t know that he will get paid for the mystery play. He doesn’t know what will be written on the stone wall.

**\- we troubadours and poets sing -**

Whatever Pierre wants to tell his contemporaries, he writes about. He makes up a new genre, funny and furious at the same time. He doesn’t know if his name will be known historically (there will be an article about him in thirteen languages in the global encyclopedia).

In the labyrinth of corridors of the Notre Dame Pierre picks up an iron nail. He shouldn’t be here, he’s not a priest, not a quasi-bell-ringer who knows every corner here, not asking for sanctuary – it is not him who should be carving the greek word for ‘doom’ into the wall, but there’s nobody else to do it.

Pierre smiles, remembering asking his teacher of the meanings of greek words. He smiles, fingering the gothic letters. He smiles and goes home to finish his new satire work.

**\- but it is doomed, the age of the cathedrals -**

**Author's Note:**

> Pierre Gringoire actually has a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Gringore Whether he really made up the political farce genre some literary theorists think him to, I don't know. Also, the Greek word actually should be read as 'ananke', not 'anarchy' as in the musical.


End file.
